Erica Alini
Erica Alini ties the real estate market to the everyday finances of households, focusing on how housing costs, mortgages and policy shifts filter down to individual decisions. She covers personal economics for The Globe and Mail, with a beat that sits between real estate reporting and service-oriented personal finance. Her work combines market coverage, policy analysis and practical guidance so readers can see both the big picture and the effect on their own budgets.
Condo developers, discounts and NDAs
A recurring strand in Alini’s coverage is how developer and industry practices reshape the experience of buying and owning property.
In a recent piece on condo developers offering big discounts in exchange for signing non-disclosure agreements, she focuses on the power imbalance between buyers and sellers when price cuts come with strings attached and limited transparency. The story fits into a broader pattern in her work of looking at tactics used to move units and manage risk, and at what those tactics mean for end users rather than just for sales statistics.
Across this reporting, she stays close to concrete mechanics - discounts, conditions, legal fine print - and the way they can affect both affordability and the ability of buyers to talk openly about their deals.
Real estate news and interest rate hikes
Alini is a regular presence in the Globe’s real estate news coverage, where she tracks the housing market through both weekly roundups and focused stories on borrowing costs. In Canadian real estate news pieces, she reports on transaction volumes, price trends and buyer sentiment, noting when sales rebound from previous lows yet remain below longer-term averages and how that feeds into continued price declines in many markets.
Her work on interest rate hikes explains how increases from the Bank of Canada ripple through mortgages, rents and investment decisions, underlining that higher rates affect renters and real estate investors as much as homeowners with loans.
She writes about would-be buyers delaying purchases and staying in the rental market when borrowing costs rise, connecting individual choices to shifts in demand and pressure on rents. In the same vein, she covers how rising rates can force some landlords to reconsider holding properties, adding another layer of instability for tenants.
In broader housing-market pieces, Alini looks at labour shortages in construction and at the competition among lenders and brokers to offer lower mortgage rates and smoother digital experiences, treating access to credit and service quality as part of the real estate story rather than separate from it.
Young adults’ housing and the cost of living
Beyond market metrics, Alini spends considerable time on the lived reality of housing for young adults and families. In her work on graduates living with parents or roommates, she examines the “new normal” in housing arrangements and what it says about the ability of younger Canadians to achieve financial independence.
She approaches these topics through personal economics, showing how high housing costs, student debt and wages intersect to push co-living and delayed household formation.
Her interest in the cost of living extends to everyday choices such as booking campgrounds, where she has solicited reader experiences of the “campground-booking Hunger Games.”
In these call-outs, she looks at shortages of desirable spots, booking systems and rules, and the way scarcity and competition turn what should be a simple leisure purchase into a stressful, strategic exercise. Taken together, this strand of coverage shows her focus on how housing and travel decisions are constrained not only by macroeconomic forces but also by the design of systems and policies that govern access.
MoneySmart bootcamps and reader-driven personal finance
Alini’s real estate and housing coverage sits on top of a larger body of personal finance and personal economics work that includes explainers, bootcamps and Q&A formats. She has led a MoneySmart Bootcamp for the Globe, writing practical modules on budgeting, debt repayment, rent affordability and how to structure “money buckets” for different expenses and savings goals.
In that project, she breaks down rules of thumb - such as limits on fixed expenses relative to after-tax income - and tests them against the realities of high-rent cities and varied household needs.
She is the author of the book Money Like You Mean It: Personal Finance Tactics for the Real World, which reflects the same emphasis on everyday tactics and clear language. Her reporting frequently links individual anecdotes to shifts in tax rules, consumer protection regulation, tariffs and trade policy, illustrating how changes in law and economics can alter mortgage costs, household budgets and investment behaviour. Alini also uses reader Q&As and online sessions to field questions about whether it is a good time to buy or sell a house, fixed versus variable mortgages, and how geopolitical events that affect oil prices can flow through to inflation, bond yields and mortgage rates.
Across these formats, she treats readers’ specific dilemmas as entry points to explain complex systems, always returning to what policies and market movements mean for personal balance sheets.
4 more real estate journalists.
Addie Morfoot
Addie Morfoot covers how real estate, culture and media meet, focusing on people, rules and the way homes shape a life. She reports for The New York Times on housing and lifestyle, from personal narratives about finding a home after loss to features on how short-term rental policy affects everyday owners and renters. She writes real estate stories that connect laws and regulations to the choices available to ordinary residents in specific towns and cities. She is a regular contributor to the Sunday Routine franchise, following actors, comedians and designers through a typical day and showing how settings like homes, studios and subway cars shape daily experience. She also has a long track record covering documentary film and the entertainment business, including legal questions around fair use, changing docu-series formats, festival premieres and financing. Her portfolio spans more than two decades of work for The New York Times, Variety, The Wall Street Journal and Crain’s New York Business.
Alcynna Lloyd
Alcynna Lloyd is a real estate reporter and economic journalist at Business Insider whose work is distinct for treating housing as a core economic system people must navigate. She covers how housing markets, costs, and mobility shape everyday life decisions, connecting data on rents, home prices, and city trends with stories of people managing debt, multigenerational living, and moves abroad. Her beat centers on housing costs, renters, and household strategies, following renters pushing back against landlords and tracking “desperate home sellers” using concessions in unaffordable markets. A second strand of her coverage focuses on relocation, remote work, and cheap cities as everyday economic strategies. She regularly uses rankings and lists, such as best and worst states to buy a home and Rising Stars of Real Estate, and reads city housing and migration shifts as signs of broader economic change.
Alec Lazenby
Alec Lazenby covers how provincial politics and government decisions shape housing, real estate and the wider social fabric. He reports for The Vancouver Sun from the provincial legislature. His work examines HousingHub, middle-income rentals, affordability, stalled projects, empty condos, developer layoffs, municipal housing targets and land use. He also covers health, addiction, safer supply, involuntary care, water rights, resource management, Indigenous rights and Crown land. Lazenby connects policy language to specific buildings, rents, projects, services and people. He explains financial, regulatory and market pressures, then follows how institutions, professionals, developers, municipalities and affected communities respond. His reporting tests government goals against practical outcomes and shows how policy reversals, construction costs, interest rates and political accountability shape housing and public life.
Amir Ali
Amir Ali links housing, disputes, and oddball neighbourhood stories in case-based, street-level reporting for Daily Hive. He holds a senior editorial and writing role, listed on the masthead as part of Vancouver leadership and described as a staff writer. His core beat is real estate, especially the rental market and housing affordability, tracking rent ranges, market shifts, and how pressures land on people trying to stay housed. He also covers crime, civil tribunals, and mental health, explaining decisions and conflicts in plain language that focuses on timelines, behaviour, and outcomes. Ali writes offbeat hyperlocal features, traffic and transport disruptions, business, food, and general local news, often turning infrastructure, small businesses, and civic systems into tangible stories. A former radio producer, he brings tight pacing and clear stakes to written pieces and maintains an active social media presence as a broadcaster and writer.